Wager's Price

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Wager's Price Page 13

by G. P. Ching


  “Looks like we’ve hit her limit,” Kirsa said calmly. She unfastened Hope’s restraints while dodging the heaving sick.

  “I can’t. No more,” Hope managed to say between heaves.

  “Relax. You did well today. Go to your room and sleep it off.” She pushed Hope toward the staircase.

  Hope glanced at Finn. What if Kirsa tried the same with him? “Finn,” she whispered.

  He responded by grabbing her under her elbow.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Kirsa asked him.

  “I thought I’d help her to our room,” Finn said. Hope didn’t need help, but she wanted Kirsa to think she did. If he was allowed to walk her back to the room, she might save him from the agony awaiting him here.

  The hefty woman shook her head. “You’re next. She goes alone.”

  Hope gave Finn a long, scared look before sliding her arm from his. He backed toward the wheel. By the time she’d reached the top of the stairs, Kirsa had him strapped in. The worst part was the look on his face. His eyes narrowed on Hope as if she were a riddle he couldn’t solve. And then Kirsa gave him a spin, and his face blurred into an indistinguishable array of colors and shapes.

  16

  After

  Finn was dismissed after another hour of being nicked and scraped by hurled blades. He’d spun on the wheel until he was sure he’d be as sick as Hope. Kirsa had stopped short of stabbing him in the lung, thank goodness. Still, the experience was anything but pleasant.

  “Unlike your roommate,” Kirsa said as she unstrapped him and dabbed his latest wound with a glob of healing salve, “you have no propensity for resilience.” She scowled. “You can go.”

  He wasted no time limping from the armory and crossing the mansion to find Hope. Everything hurt, but he hastened his steps anyway. He had questions that needed answers. Bursting into their room, he expected to find her curled up on the bed or hunched over the sink in the bathroom. Instead, she was staring out the window, her fingers rubbing circles over the three intertwined ovals of her pendant. She’d already changed out of her bloody uniform.

  Finn shook his head. She didn’t seem hurt in the least. “Why aren’t you injured? I saw Kirsa stab you in the chest.”

  When she turned from the glass, Finn could see she’d been crying. He almost felt bad for being so blunt. Almost. Unlike him, she didn’t look like a used pincushion.

  “I don’t understand this place,” she said. “Why do you think they’re doing this to us?”

  He grimaced. “I don’t know. You didn’t answer my question. How is it that Kirsa stabbed you in the chest and you healed?” He pointed at a large tear in his uniform near the shoulder. “I know firsthand those knives are real.”

  Hope’s gaze traveled around the room. “Get dressed. We’ll be late for dinner.”

  “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

  “What makes you think I know?” she snapped.

  He narrowed his eyes on her. Once it was clear she wouldn’t or couldn’t answer him, he grabbed a new uniform from his drawer and shut himself into the bathroom. His head spun with thoughts of Paul and Hope and even Theodor. Everything about this place was evil. Students ripped apart by wolves. Teachers stabbing kids for fun. Being forced to fall on your face for an hour. He’d been wrong. Lakeview would have been the better option.

  There was a basket in the corner labeled “Laundry.” Finn peeled off his bloody and torn garb and tossed it on top of Hope’s, then on a whim, dug hers out to inspect it more closely. It was torn and stained with blood where he remembered her being stabbed, the largest area a bright red patch under her left rib. He tossed it back into the basket, shaking his head.

  Something was odd about Hope Laudner. Could he trust her? She was here for a reason. She’d done something, something bad enough to earn her a ticket to this place. Kirsa called her one of the special ones. What the hell did that mean?

  Finn took a good look at himself in the mirror over the sink. He ached to his bones and sported a rainbow of injuries. Deep purple bruises dappled his body. A wound in his shoulder itched under its gauze bandage, as did the bright red cuts along his ears, cheeks, and legs. Most of his skin was black and blue, and the gauze pads covering his wounds were either bloody red or soaked yellow with healing balm. He dug his fingers under one on his thigh and peeled it back.

  “They should market this shit,” he said, scratching the tight, newly healed skin. He tossed the gauze and peeled back another. Healed. He was bruised, he was bloody, but he wasn’t bleeding. Not anymore.

  Finn cursed under his breath. Maybe Hope hadn’t done anything special or bizarre after all. Was it this place, the balm? It was like… magic. The thought made him think of Theodor and his dancing cards. His head started to pound. What did it all mean?

  By the time Finn emerged from the bathroom, Hope was already gone. To his surprise, the book Theodor had lent him rested on his made bed. He tucked it beneath his pillow for safekeeping. Best if he didn’t need to explain where he’d gotten it. He slipped his feet into his shoes and rushed toward the dining room.

  Jenny Pendleton met him at the door. “Have you seen Paul? He didn’t come back to our room.”

  “Didn’t anyone tell you? He was injured in menagerie, mauled by wolves.”

  “Wolves? Why? How?”

  Finn told her the entire story over dinner, repeating details as the others arrived and joined them. Hope wasn’t there, and he briefly wondered where she’d gone.

  “Is anyone else skeptical about the claim they’ve never lost a student?” Wendy whispered.

  Mike agreed. “I don’t believe it. Everything about this place is dangerous.”

  “You don’t think it’s fair for them to torture delinquents in the name of entertainment?” Jayden scoffed.

  “This place is worse than Lakeview,” Finn said. “At least there they don’t pretend to be something they’re not.”

  “You mean because the glossy photos made this place look like a spa?” Jayden laughed bitterly. “I could paint your nails for you, Wager.” He ran a hand through his too-long red hair.

  “You can paint my nails,” Jenny said, fluttering her eyelashes over a fist-sized bruise on her cheek.

  Jayden circled one hand in the air. “At your service. Since Paul is indisposed, why don’t you join Wendy and me in our room tonight? I’ll do your fingers and your toes.”

  Wendy cleared her throat. “What about my toes?”

  “Finn Shady, would you care to join us for a spa night? I’m not sure I can handle twenty.”

  Smooth. Finn exchanged smiles with Wendy. “Uh, sure.”

  “So, there you go. Finn will do you…”

  Finn’s cheeks blazed.

  “I mean, your toes. And I’ll do her.” Jayden leaned toward Jenny with a crooked half smile.

  “And when you boys are done we’ll both look like well-kept domestic abuse victims,” Wendy said, checking out the bruises around her broken nose in her spoon.

  Mike groaned. “Hey, what about me?”

  “I’m not sure who can paint your toes, Mike,” Jayden said. “Where’s Hope, Finn?”

  Finn shrugged. “I don’t know. She never came down.”

  “Did you notice the admissions counselors are missing as well?” Jenny said.

  “Do you think they’re doing whatever they did to Amanda to Hope?”

  Finn rubbed his head, feeling anxious.

  Mrs. Wilhelm appeared next to them, seemingly out of thin air. “All children must be in their own rooms by sundown.” She searched Jayden’s eyes and then Jenny’s, before lowering her voice. “Don’t test them. It won’t end well.” She disappeared as quickly as she’d arrived.

  Jayden glanced at the sinking sun outside the window and frowned. “So much for spa night.”

  After dinner, Finn hurried back to his room, praying Hope wasn’t Applegate and Ravenguard’s latest project. He was relieved to find her sitting on her bed.

  “
There you are,” Hope said as if he was the one who wasn’t where he was supposed to be. “I have something to show you.”

  “You missed dinner,” Finn said. He lowered his voice. “Wendy thought Ravenguard took you, like Amanda.”

  She stepped close to him, until the sharp contours of her face were a hand’s width from his. “I found something.”

  Finn glanced through their window toward the sinking sun. “Make it fast. We have to be in our rooms by sundown.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “What makes you think they’d explain it to me? Mrs. Wilhelm was adamant.”

  “Never mind. Come on.” She grabbed his elbow and ushered him to the back stairwell. Before long, he recognized exactly where she was going.

  “You found the library,” he said.

  “You know about it?”

  He remembered Theodor’s warning that he was not to tell anyone of their lessons and thought quickly of an alternate truth. “I had some extra time on my hands after Paul’s accident.”

  She pushed the door open with her hip and jogged down the hall of birds, past the archway where Theodor had led him, and into another section of the library. She stopped at an alcove carved like the trunk of a hollowed-out tree. Its branches bent around the books, carvings of individual leaves layered over knobby bark. The occasional wing of a bird projected from the shelves.

  “Is this where you’ve been all afternoon?” Finn asked.

  “Once I stopped tossing my cookies and after I saw you in our room.”

  “About that—”

  “Not now. I need to show you something. Something that affects us all.”

  “Show me what?” He was too tired and sore for this. He leaned his shoulder against a shelf filled with books about horticulture. Hope squatted down and pulled a giant leather portfolio from under the window seat. It landed with a thud on the bench, and she used two hands to open the front cover.

  “What are those?”

  “Past Revelations Theater advertisements.” She opened the book to a yellowing poster of a woman bent backward, her torso parallel to the floor. She was en pointe, dressed like a ballerina. One of her arms twisted toward the ceiling like a dancing snake while her other held a flaming torch.

  “Come see the burning woman. She’s fireproof and hotter than Hades,” Finn read. He thumbed the edge of the sepia print. “Revelations Theater, Spring 1972.”

  “Doesn’t the woman look familiar?” Hope asked.

  “Sure, she looks like Fuse. Probably a relative. Maybe her mother?”

  “Or maybe it’s her.”

  Finn snorted. “She’d be over fifty years old. You’ve seen her. She couldn’t be more than twenty-five.”

  Hope turned the pages back toward the beginning. This poster showed a woman hovering above the stage in the grips of a blue glow. Behind her, a man’s face was partially hidden in shadow. The grainy quality of the print made it impossible to identify the man, but the pencil-thin mustache and dimpled chin looked a hell of a lot like Theodor’s. “Let the magic sweep you off your feet. Revelations Theater, Fall 1943. What? That’s impossible.”

  Hope flipped all the way to the end. Juliette Bittercourt, her face bisected by the edge of the poster, stared at Finn in her peacock-blue splendor.

  “Sirens and sorcery. Tomorrow is yours. Revelations Theater, Spring 2017. You’ll never see the future the same way again,” he read.

  “That’s Juliette. That was ten years ago. She hasn’t aged a day. The last poster representing an enchanter other than Juliette was in 1990. Here.” Hope flipped back a few posters to a familiar-looking woman with raven-black hair, arms outstretched and mouth open in silent song.

  “Who is that? What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know,” Hope said. “None of the posters have names. But she was a long-term veteran of Revelations.” Hope flipped back to the beginning of the book, to a yellowed parchment of a poster. The dark-haired woman was there in black and white, looking exactly the same as she had in the picture from 1990.

  “1942,” Finn said. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “That, Finn, is the smartest thing you’ve said since I met you.”

  “There must be an explanation. These couldn’t possibly be the people we know. I bet these are props, advertisements for the show made to look old.”

  Hope’s expression closed off and she knotted her fingers. “Possibly.” A long shadow stretched toward Finn over the wall of books. “We don’t have much time.” She closed the book and put it back where it came from.

  Finn headed for the stairs, breaking into long strides in the hallway. He reached his room just as Ravenguard topped the main steps from the foyer and gave them a threatening glare. Hope shoved Finn hard in the back, trying to make it inside before the admissions counselor reached their room. The last hint of light faded entirely at the moment Ravenguard’s form crowded their doorway.

  “Lucky you,” the man said from the doorway. Under the shadow of his bowler hat, a muscle in Ravenguard’s jaw twitched, his glasses bobbing with the movement. He closed the door without the hint of a smile or a wish good night. There was a click and the grind of a key turning in the lock.

  Finn turned to Hope. “Commence nighttime imprisonment.”

  17

  Bird

  Hope stared at the locked door and realized she was in way over her head. What was going on at this school wasn’t reform; it was child abuse. But she wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t also something else, something evil.

  “Why do they lock us in at night? Where are we going to go?” Finn asked, spreading his hands. “We’re on a frickin’ island.”

  “Maybe it’s not about what we’re going to do.” Hope flopped onto her bed with a bounce. There was only so much she could tell Finn. Too much would put him at risk. Not enough would put him at risk.

  “You think they lock us in for our protection?”

  “The woods are filled with barely tamed animals.” She stared at the ceiling, the events of the last few days tumbling inside her skull.

  “It’s like Revelations has a mystery around every corner.” Finn shook his head.

  Swallowing, she said, “Thanks for coming with me. I had to show someone. It’s just so weird.”

  “How did you heal yourself, Hope?” Finn asked.

  “I…” She shrugged. “You can use the bathroom first.”

  “Whatever.” He grabbed his pajamas and drifted into the bathroom. He looked perturbed. She supposed he was running out of patience with the mysteries involving her.

  As soon as the water started running, she rushed to the window and pulled her triquetra pendant from around her neck. “Messenger, I call upon thee.”

  Light refracted through the glass, folded and expanded into a shimmering gold column. Once the glow dimmed, Gabriel formed with his wings flexed, at the center of the room.

  “You called?” he said softly. “How may I serve you, Daughter of Angels?”

  “You could drop the formal act and get me out of here.”

  He shook his head. “You know I can’t do that. You’re here for a reason. You must determine who or what is stealing the lost souls.”

  “They’re going to figure out what I am,” Hope said through her teeth. “I’m too strong and too fast.”

  “What did the Immortals say when you went to the In-Between?”

  “I didn’t go over.”

  “What? Why?” Gabriel’s scruffy chin wrinkled with his frown. She’d long gotten over expecting him to look angelic. Gabriel looked like a middle-aged guy with wings who was perpetually stressed out and hungover.

  There was a long pause while Hope tried to think of an excuse. Nothing came to her. “I didn’t go. It is what it is.” Visiting Time, Death, and Fate wasn’t her idea of a good time. Any sane person might have procrastinated.

  “Go over now.”

  “I can’t. I’ve tried. There’s something about this place. It’s not working.”
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  “This hardship is your doing. Without them, you’ll need to find out for yourself who is behind the lost souls. Remember why you are here.”

  “Has He told you anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What should I do? I’m going into this completely blind,” Hope whimpered.

  “You’ll have to investigate the old-fashioned way. Who is pulling the strings? With proof, we can take action. Without it, we could upset the balance.”

  “Right. The balance—”

  “Gain the trust of the boy,” the angel said, glancing toward the bathroom.

  “What?” Hope was perplexed. What did Finn have to do with any of this?

  “There are no mistakes when it comes to His work, Hope. You were paired for a reason, and I sense your friendship will serve a purpose.”

  “But—”

  The floor in the bathroom creaked and Hope stopped midword. When had the water stopped? She whirled on Gabriel, but he was already gone. By the time Finn opened the door, there was only a large white falcon on the ledge outside their window. It spread its wings and flew toward the woods.

  “Who were you talking to?” Finn asked.

  Hope laughed. “No one. I’ve been sitting here the entire time.”

  “I heard voices.”

  “I was…” She shifted off the bed and gathered her pajamas from her dresser. “I was talking to the bird.”

  “I heard a male voice.”

  “That was me pretending to be the bird.” She tucked her chin into her chest. “I am a big bird of prey,” she said in a low, gravelly voice. She sounded like an idiot. But there wasn’t anything else to say.

  His jaw popped open and his eyelids sank until he peered at her through narrow slits. “Seriously? Who are the Immortals, and why didn’t you go to see them?”

  Hope froze. He’d heard. She forced her expression to turn blank. “The door is locked, Finn. Who would I be talking to?” She didn’t wait for his answer. She hurried into the bathroom and closed the door.

 

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